And that means millions of young people around the country are suddenly on the job hunt, flooding the labor market to make a quick buck in the dog days of summer.

The number of 16- to 24-year-olds working or actively looking for work grows sharply this time of year, as large numbers of high
school and college students search for summer jobs, and recent graduates enter the labor market to find permanent employment. Between April and July 2014, the number of youth workers jumped from about 2 million to more than 20 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But summer youth unemployment remains stubbornly high, at roughly three times the national unemployment rate. And for 16- to 19-year-olds, that rate is significantly higher.

An NPR story last summer warned of a “lost generation of workers,” reporting that nearly 5.8 million youth were neither in school or employed.

In July 2014, typically the summertime peak of youth employment, just over 50 percent of the youth work force (16- to 24-year-olds) was employed, up slightly from the previous year, according to the BLS. White youth were employed at the highest rate (63.2%), followed by Hispanics (56.2%), blacks (52.9%) and Asians (45.8%).

About 25 percent of all employed youth worked in the leisure and hospitality industry (including food services) and 19 percent in retail trades, the two largest youth employment sectors, the BLS reported.

The youth unemployment rate, which was hit particularly hard between 2008 and 2010 (during the recession), has actually declined in recent years: in July 2014, about 20 percent of 16- to 19-year-olds looking for work were unemployed, down from a peak of nearly 26 percent in 2010.

“The hardest part is having the employers be open-minded that this is a job that’s helping this individual,” says John Tran, a guidance counselor in Oakland High School’s Wellness Center, who helps place students in jobs and internships. Despite the San Francisco Bay Area’s recent boom, low-skilled jobs for youth can be hard to find, he says.

Metropolitan areas with the highest and lowest employment rates of teens aged 16-19 among the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, 2010-2011 (courtesy of the Brookings Institution)

In fact, the rate of employment for 16- to 19-year-olds in the Bay Area was one of the lowest of any major metro region in the nation in 2010-11, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution of American Community Survey.

Tran says the most sought after summer jobs are at popular radio stations (public radio not included), Footlocker, and music and clothing retailers. The positions he helps students find generally have a leadership focus, pairing teens with elementary school sites, after-school programs and summer camps.

Students typically find jobs by word of mouth, Tran adds. Youth non-profit organizations also offer good job resources and opportunities for inexperienced workers. But the jobs posted to online job clearinghouses, he notes, often list far more qualifications than the average high school student will realistically have.

Some Bay Area job resources for youth

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2015/06/10/are-summer-jobs-for-youth-getting-harder-to-find/feed/6Screen shot 2015-06-10 at 12.55.38 PMFrom the Brookings InstitutionA Brief History of May Day (from the Folks Who Brought You the 8-Hour Work Day)http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2014/04/30/a-brief-history-of-may-day/
http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2014/04/30/a-brief-history-of-may-day/#commentsFri, 01 May 2015 16:25:39 +0000http://blogs.kqed.org/lowdown/?p=12689Continue reading A Brief History of May Day (from the Folks Who Brought You the 8-Hour Work Day)→]]>The Haymarket affair, depicted in a Harper’s Magazine engraving (Wikimedia Commons)

May Day, for some, is a time to prance around flower-wreathed poles like wood nymphs.

But that’s probably not what thousands of workers around the world have in mind when they take to the streets today.

In nearly 80 countries around the world, May 1 — also known as International Workers Day — is considered an official labor holiday, marked by demonstrations and rallies.

But in the U.S., where labor union membership has fallen to its lowest point in nearly 70 years, the significance of May Day is nearly all but forgotten. Which is odd, considering it commemorates a major milestone in our nation’s turbulent labor history.

Gilded Age tensions

In the late 19th Century, the wealth divide between the few haves and the many have-nots was as extreme — if not more so — than it is today.

During The Gilded Age, stretching from the end of the Civil War to the turn of the 20th Century, America went through a period of dramatic economic growth and industrialization. It resulted in a huge concentration of wealth and a widening wealth divide.

The era saw a growing gap between capital — broadly defined as stockholders, executives and managers who controlled the means of production – and the wage-earning labor force who worked the production lines.

Industrial capitalism yielded larger workplaces, greater use of technology, and a division of the manufacturing process that required less skill and training (sound familiar?). It also posed a direct threat to the individual laborer, who risked becoming an increasingly cheap and replaceable cog in a vastly growing machine.

The labor movement

It was a period of boom and bust, with intermittent economic slowdowns followed by waves of widespread unemployment that fed growing discontent among workers.

The labor movement also gained strength as a new wave of European immigrants poured into cities in search of work.

In the absence of strong federal work laws, immigrant laborers often worked excessively long hours in wretched, often dangerous conditions, typically for meager wages.

In response, a convention of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions called for a national strike on May 1, 1886. The primary demand: an eight-hour workday.

The convention declared:

“Eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labour from and after May 1, 1886, and that we recommend to labour organizations throughout this jurisdiction that they so direct their laws as to conform to this resolution by the time named.”

Hundreds of thousands of workers in cities across the country participated in the strike, including roughly 80,000 workers in Chicago. That city’s population was booming (between 1870 and 1900, it grew from about 300,000 to 1.7 million), fueled by an influx of German immigrants, which helped it become a hotbed of radical labor activism.

A flier promoting the Chicago labor rally (Wikimedia Commons)

The Haymarket Affair

Two days after the event, police and strikers clashed outside Chicago’s McCormick Reaper Works. Two workers were killed. In response, a group of anarchist labor leaders organized a rally the following evening in Chicago’s Haymarket Square.

The event attracted a large crowd, and it proceeded peacefully until police arrived and ordered the remaining workers to disburse. As the officers advanced on the crowd, someone threw a homemade bomb, and in the melee that ensued, seven policeman were killed (mostly a result of friendly-fire). Police fired on the crowd, killing at least four demonstrators and injuring scores more.

A number of subsequent organizing efforts were violently suppressed by authorities. In a desperate effort to identify the perpetrators of the Haymarket incident, Chicago authorities captured and convicted eight local labor leaders, despite any concrete evidence of their involvement. Four were hanged, one committed suicide, and three were pardoned six years later by the governor of Illinois. The identity of the real bomber was never revealed.

The seven anarchists initially sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer during the Haymarket incident (Wikimedia Commons)

Although the Haymarket Affair, as the incident became known, marked a temporary setback for the labor movement, it also spurred a fresh wave of activism around the world, particularly among younger generations of workers. Membership in labor organizations quickly spiked.

The first May Day

Responding to ongoing pressure for an eight-hour day, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) resumed its campaign, planning a general strike May 1, 1890. AFL president Samuel Gompers enlisted the support of European socialist labor leaders, planning an international day of action to demand the universal eight-hour day. Workers in countries throughout Europe and America rallied in the streets.

The New York World’s front page the next day was devoted entirely to the event. The headlines proclaimed:

“Parade of Jubilant Workingmen in All the Trade Centers of the Civilized World … Everywhere the Workmen Join in Demands for a Normal Day”

The Times of London listed 24 European cities where demonstrations had occurred. It also noted events in Cuba, Peru and Chile. Commemoration of May Day became an annual event, as workers in a growing number of nations participated each year. In many nations — especially those with socialist or former-socialist governments — it still retains strong political significance.

May Day’s decline in America

In 1894, riots erupted during the longstanding Pullman Strike near Chicago and several workers were killed by federal authorities. The incident drew national attention, and under pressure to appease the increasingly powerful labor movement, Congress unanimously approved rush legislation making Labor Day a national holiday.

However, eager to distinguish Labor Day from May Day’s more radical roots, President Grover Cleveland pushed for a September date for the holiday (Labor Day). As a result, America’s observance of May Day became increasingly obsolete in the 20th Century, as the official Labor Day celebration in September was intentionally divorced from its radical roots.

And finally, the 8-hour day

The fight for the eight-hour day in America persisted through the turn of the century, with ongoing, and sometimes violent strikes and labor demonstrations. Incrementally, though, a number of key industries agreed to shortened hours for their workers. In 1916, Congress passed the Adamson Act, which finally established the eight-hour work day. It was the first federal law regulating the hours of workers in private companies.

Two decades later, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, setting the maximum workweek for a wide range of industries at 40 hours. It also required employers to pay overtime bonuses in certain professions.

So, when you clock out of work at 5 p.m. today, you might consider tipping your hat to those May Day labor activists from back when.

The following playlist from a PBS documentary on the Haymarket Affair, chronicles the violent roots of America’s labor struggle.

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2014/04/30/a-brief-history-of-may-day/feed/3800px-HaymarketRiot-HarpersA famous Harpers Magazine engraving depicting the Haymarket affair (WikiMedia Commons)Pyramid_of_Capitalist_SystemA 1911 Industrial Worker publication illustraiton critiquing the capitalist system. (Wikimedia Commons)flierA flier promoting the the Chicago labor rally (Wikimedia Commons)378px-HaymarketMartyrsThe seven anarchists initially sentenced to death for the muder of a police officer during the Haymarket incident (Wikimedia Commons)Equal Pay Day: How Big is the Wage Gap Between Men and Women?http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2014/04/gender-wage-gap/
http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2014/04/gender-wage-gap/#commentsTue, 14 Apr 2015 19:17:27 +0000http://blogs.kqed.org/lowdown/?p=12443Continue reading Equal Pay Day: How Big is the Wage Gap Between Men and Women?→]]>http://www.youtube.com/embed/zhQah4PT_AI” frameborder=”0

April 14 is Equal Pay Day, symbolizing the number of days into 2015 (in addition to all of 2014) that the average American woman would need to work in order to match what the average man made in 2014 alone, according to Department of Labor estimates.

Although the the gender wage gap has significantly narrowed in recent decades, it still persists to a notable degree. According to the DOL, women are paid on average 78 cents for every dollar made by a man. That gap is even wider for women of color.

Women make up about half of the U.S. workforce. They are the main breadwinners in about forty percent households and have eclipsed men in the number of college and graduate degrees earned, according to the National Women’s Law Center, an advocacy group. Yet, on average, women earn less than men in almost every occupation for which there is sufficient wage data. The median wage for full-time male workers was $48,202, as compared to $37,118 for women, based on NWLC’s analysis of 2011 American Community Survey data.

When the Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963, full-time working women on average made about 59 cents for every dollar made by men. By 1973, the gap had actually grown wider: women made 57 cents for every dollar men made. Since then, however, the gap has gradually narrowed, although it’s remained fairly stagnant since 2000.

A separate Pew Research analysis, based on hourly earnings of both full- and part-time workers, found that today’s gender wage gap, although still significant, is smaller than the DOJ’s estimate. According to Pew’s estimate, women earn 84 percent of what men earn, meaning that it would take approximately 40 days, or until the end of February, for women to earn what men had made by the end of the previous year. The wage gap was even smaller for younger women, who on average made about 93 percent of what their male counterparts made.

Why does the wage gap still exist?

Reasons for the pay gap vary widely. Some academic studies argue that the disparity is due mainly to non-discriminatory factors related to division of labor in the home — including childcare — that often falls more heavily on women. Because of family-related circumstances, women are also more likely than men to have interrupted careers and to work part-time, which can result in less-senior positions and lower wages. Additionally, women are still more likely than men to be employed in lower-paying service and support professions. Some studies, however, point to evidence that the gender wage gap persists even after variables like family leave are taken into account, concluding that systemic discrimination remains a primary factor.

By race/ethnic group

The gender pay gap widens when comparing average annual wages made by women of color to those made by white men. For instance, African-American women working full time, year-round were paid only 64 cents, and Hispanic women only 55 cents, for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men, according to NWLC.

By state

Click on each state in the map below to see what women, on average, made for every dollar men made in 2011 (the ratio of female to male median earnings for full-time, year-round workers). The “wage gap” is the additional money a woman would have to make for every dollar made by a man in order to have equal annual earnings. The map uses 2011 data from the American Community Survey, collected by NWLC. Note that some figures have changed slightly since 2011. (Download the data here)

Leading the pack was Washington D.C., where average female full-time workers made, on average, 90.4 cents for every dollar male workers made. In California, which ranked fourth, women made 84.9 cents for every dollar made by men. Wyoming took up the rear: women there a mere 66.6 cents for every dollar made by men.

By profession

Even within the same professions, women today are still paid significantly less, on average, than men. But the pay gap varies dramatically by job, according to NPR’s Planet Money team, which looked at Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The chart below, by Lam Thuy Vo, shows jobs where the wage gap is smallest and largest (based on comparisons of full-time workers). Part of the gap in pay, Vo notes, results from professional decisions some women voluntarily make. She writes: “Among physicians, for example, women are more likely than men to choose lower-paid specialties (though this does not explain all of the pay gap among doctors).” It’s also interesting to note, writes Vo, that the jobs where the gap is biggest are the one’s that pay more.

Percentages are based on the median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers. Not all jobs have enough workers for BLS to calculate a meaningful ratio.Source: Bureau of Labor StatisticsCredit: Lam Thuy Vo / NPR

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2014/04/gender-wage-gap/feed/0Wage_Gapjobs-by–gender-616Percentages are based on the median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers. Not all jobs have enough workers for BLS to calculate a meaningful ratio.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Credit: Lam Thuy Vo / NPRIn Raising Minimum Wage, Wal-Mart Joins Widening Group of Retailers, Cities and States [Interactive Explainer]http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2015/02/19/walmart-to-raise-its-minimum-wage-following-a-growing-national-trend-interactive/
http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2015/02/19/walmart-to-raise-its-minimum-wage-following-a-growing-national-trend-interactive/#commentsFri, 20 Feb 2015 00:47:49 +0000http://blogs.kqed.org/lowdown/?p=16328Continue reading In Raising Minimum Wage, Wal-Mart Joins Widening Group of Retailers, Cities and States [Interactive Explainer]→]]>Wal-Mart employees demonstrate outside a store in Pico Rivera, California in 2012. (Courtesy of UFCW International Union)

About half a million Wal-Mart employees are getting a much needed pay raise. Starting in April, full- and part-time U.S. employees of the company, the largest private employer in the nation, will earn at least $9 an hour, a full $1.75 more than the federal minimum wage, the company announced this week.

Wal-Mart, which has long been criticized by labor advocates for its low compensation rates, says hourly wages will rise to at least $10 by next year. It’s the latest in a series of large retailers who have recently moved to boost wages for their lowest paid employees. Last year Gap, Inc. announced a similar wage bump, joining the ranks of companies like Ikea, Whole Foods and Costco that all pay above the federal minimum.

The company’s decision is likely prompted by several factors, including an improving economy, falling unemployment and increased competition for workers, as well as mounting pressure to offer a living wage to its massive army of employees.

“It is the workers who came together and demanded higher wages and better working conditions,” Haeyoung Yoon, a labor advocate with the National Employment Law Project, told NPR’s Yuki Noguchi.

The announcement aligns with President Obama’s ongoing effort to increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 (despite congressional opposition), and follows on the heels of a growing number of cities and states around the country that have raised their own minimum wages. It also comes after a slew of recent protests by fast food workers and employees in other low wage industries demanding better pay.

The wage hike is expected to set Wal-Mart back about $1 billion, a hefty sum for sure, but a relative drop in the bucket compared to the company’s market capitalization (total dollar market value of all its outstanding shares), estimated at almost $275 billion.

Wal-Mart also announced plans to revise parts of its oft-criticized employee-scheduling process. The current system attempts to match employee supply to customer demand. This leaves many of its workers in the lurch by not providing regularly scheduled hours, instead requiring many of them to remain on call without any certainty about how many hours — and how much pay — they’ll get from week to week. Although vague on the specifics, the company said it will start “providing associates a more transparent, accessible schedule,” and by 2016 will offer “some associates” fixed schedules each week with two-and-a-half weeks advance notice.

We dig into the debate over dollars and cents in this interactive explainer produced by Newsbound. You can scroll through the whole presentation at once, or view specific chapters by selecting the table of contents button on the bottom left of the screen. Sources for each slide are also included at the bottom.

In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama urged Congress to raise the federal minimum wage, which has wallowed at $7.25 since 2007. But Congress didn’t budge, sidestepping the issue that has long been staunchly opposed by the Republican leadership.

It may have seemed surprising, then, that voters in four unabashedly conservative states — Alaska, Nebraska, South Dakota and Arkansas — decisively supported minimum wage hikes in Tuesday’s general election. In fact, despite ongoing conservative opposition to the raising the federal minimum wage, recent initiatives in individual states, both blue and red, have had overwhelmingly success. As of Aug. 1, 2014, 23 states and Washington D.C. have minimum wages above the federal level, many of which have resulted from successful ballot measures over the last 15 years. And some cities have taken the effort even farther: voters in San Francisco overwhelmingly supported an incremental increase to $15 an hour by 2018 — tying Seattle for highest in the nation — while Oakland voters approved a bump from $9 to $12.25 by March 2015.

We dig into the debate over dollars and cents in this interactive explainer, produced by Newsbound. Scroll through the whole presentation at once, or choose specific chapters by selecting the table of contents button on the bottom left of the screen. Sources for each slide are also included at the bottom.

In fact, the poolside serenity of this three-day weekend masks the often forgotten turbulent history that led to Labor Day’s creation.

In the late 19th Century, growing labor unrest led to a series of violent actions against U.S. workers demanding higher pay, safer working conditions and the right to unionize. In and era of rapid industrialization, America’s urban centers were bursting at the seams, filled with indigent newcomers desperate for work, and prime targets of exploitation.

These hard fought labor struggles ultimately resulted in vast improvements in working conditions for millions, spurring an era of new labor regulations, including laws that established an 8-hour day and prohibited child labor.The reforms also gave rise to an era of strong organized labor, higher wages and a marked increase in the ranks of America’s middle class.

The gains were dramatic, but they didn’t come easy.

These two short videos provide a good brief overview of those origins.

The Supreme Court this week dealt a blow to the nation’s struggling labor unions. In a 5-4 decision along ideological lines, the court ruled that some government workers who decline membership in the unions that represent them can’t be forced to pay collective bargaining fees.

Just over 11 percent of the U.S. workforce belongs to a union today, the lowest rate in more than 70 years.

That’s a far cry from the boom in organized labor that began during World War II with a surge in manufacturing and industrial growth. By 1945, more than 26 percent of the nation’s civilian wage and salary workers were members of unions, nearly quadruple the rate from the previous decade. The spike led to higher wages in a range of industries, fueling America’s burgeoning middle class. Through the 1950s and ’60s membership rates continued to climb, reaching a peak of nearly 27 percent by 1953, according the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (The BLS differentiates the rate of union membership from that of union representation, which is always slightly higher; by the mid-1950s roughly 35 percent of workers were represented by unions.)

But as the economy sputtered in the 1970s, these rates began to steadily decline. Much of this drop has occurred in the private sector, where fewer than 7 percent of workers now belong to unions, the BLS reports. That’s less than five times the public sector’s membership rate, which still hovers above 35 percent. But that too has been on the wane, and is likely to decline further as a result of the court’s decision.

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2014/07/02/the-rise-and-fall-of-americas-labor-unions/feed/1SEIU Janitors Protest Firing by JPMorgan ChaseTime for A Raise? What You Need to Know About the Minimum Wagehttp://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2014/03/10/minimum-wage/
http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2014/03/10/minimum-wage/#commentsThu, 13 Mar 2014 18:00:53 +0000http://blogs.kqed.org/lowdown/?p=12010Continue reading Time for A Raise? What You Need to Know About the Minimum Wage→]]>

Do America’s lowest wage earners deserve a raise?

As Congress again delves into the hotly contested perennial debate over raising the federal minimum wage, a growing number of states and cities throughout the country are forging their own paths on the issue, resulting in an uneven national patchwork of wage laws. We dig into the debate over dollars and cents in this interactive explainer, produced by Newsbound. Scroll through the whole presentation at once, or choose specific chapters by selecting the table of contents button on the bottom left of the screen. Sources for each slide are also included at the bottom.

Relevant ELA and Social Studies CCSS Standards

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.7: Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.

Fast-food workers at restaurants in more than 100 cities across the country, including Oakland and other East Bay cities, are walking off the the job today in a push for a major wage hike.

Backed by organized labor, the one-day actions are part of a year-old campaign to highlight the difficulties low-wage workers face in paying for basic living costs.

Following on the heels of similar protests last summer, demonstrators are demanding a wage of $15 an hour, a significant — though unlikely — raise from the current average fast-food industry wage of less than $9 an hour.

Pew Research Center

The campaign coincides with an effort by congressional Democrats pushing a bill to incrementally increase the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour from its current level of $7.25. But it has little chance of passing the Republican-controlled House, where many members oppose it as a job-killing measure. Supporters of wage hikes have had greater success on a state and local level, winning recent victories in New Jersey, California, New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island, all of which approved minimum wage increases this year.

In a recently released statement, the National Restaurant Association, an industry lobbying group, criticized today’s demonstrations as little more than a political stunt “engineered by national labor groups where the vast majority of participants are activists and paid demonstrators.” The group argues that throughout the recession and slow economic recovery, fast-food restaurants, many of which are locally-owned franchises, have consistently provided employment to hundreds of thousands of low-skilled workers. A dramatic increases in wages, it claims, would result in significant job cuts, increased automation, and more expensive meals for consumers.

Where the strikes are happening, according to labor group Fast Food Forward
(zoom in for regional detail)

Steep hidden costs of low wages

But a recent study by the UC Berkeley Labor Center and University of Illinois makes the case that the public cost of these low-wage jobs is deceptively steep.

Courtesy UC Berkeley Labor Center

In an analysis of core, front-line fast-food workers, (defined as non-managerial employees working at least 11 hours per week for 27 or more weeks per year), the report calculated an average nationwide wage of $8.69 an hour, which at full-time employment is far below the cost of living just about anywhere in the country, resulting in high poverty rates among workers’ families It also found that only 13 percent of these workers receive health care benefits from their employers.

As a result of low wages and lack of benefits, more than half of families of front-line fast-food workers are enrolled in one or more public assistance programs, costing taxpayers nearly $7 billion a year, according to the study. Of that, nearly $4 billion is spent on public health care costs and more than $1 billion goes toward food stamp benefits

“The fast-food industry stands out for both its low wages and its paucity of full-time work jobs,” the study’s authors write. “As a result, annual earnings in the fast-food industry are well below the income needed for self-sufficiency.”

Not just teenagers flipping burgers anymore

Teenagers flipping burgers as a part-time, after-school gig is no longer the industry norm. Lingering unemployment has led to an increasing number of older workers filling fast-food jobs. The average age of fast-food workers is now about 29, according to the American Community Survey, and roughly a quarter of workers are parents and more than a third have second jobs.

The original McBudget (courtesy of Forbes)

McDonald’s recently took heat after labor organizers published screen grabs from McResourceline.com, a corporate website that offered financial tips to cash-strapped workers (see video below). The site, which has since been taken down, counseled employees to conserve costs by doing things like breaking their meals into pieces resulting in “eating less and still feeling full,” taking two vacations a year to reduce heart attack risk, and making additional income by selling “unwanted possessions on eBay or Craigslist.”

In response, McDonald’s argued that the site was a well-intentioned effort to help its workers, and that the suggestions were taken out of context.

The company also provides an online budgeting guide for its workers, created in conjunction with Visa. A initial sample “McBudget” published this summer went viral online because it failed to include basic necessities like food, clothing, childcare and gas. And it earmarked only $20 a month for health-insurance costs.

A video published on the labor organizing site lowpayisnotok.org, featuring screen grabs from the now defunct McResourceline.com.

California’s lowest-paid workers received some much welcomed news this week when state lawmakers approved a hotly contested bill to gradually bump up the minimum wage to $10 an hour.

The legislation, which Governor Jerry Brown has already promised to sign, will hike the state’s minimum wage to $9 by next July and $10 by January 2016, an increase of 25 percent. It’s the first statewide increase in six years, and will give California the highest minimum wage in the nation. Currently, Washington State leads the way, with a minimum wage of $9.19 an hour. California also trails Vermont and Oregon.

The pay hike is expected to directly impact roughly two million low-wage workers in California who earn less than $10 an hour, including about 1.5 million full-time employees (who earn under $20,800 a year), according to a Sacramento Bee analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s, 2011 American Community Survey. Currently, a full-time worker in California earning the minimum wage makes $16,640 a year, just above poverty wage.

Introduced by Assemblyman Luis Alejo, D-Salinas, California’s wage bill was split sharply along party lines, as lawmakers battled into the final hours of the legislative session on Thursday night. The bill’s overwhelmingly Democratic proponents claim that a wage increase is a life-saver for struggling low-wage workers trying to support their families, and contend that there is no historical evidence to suggest that it will reduce jobs. On the contrary, they argue, a pay increase will reduce employee turnover and stimulate local economies by putting extra cash directly into the hands of low-wage workers.

“If you give people a couple more dollars an hour … to spend in their communities, spend it they will,” Sen. Marty Block, D-San Diego told the Associated Press “Nothing will make small businesses happier. This will stimulate the economy as well as helping people’s lives.”

Republican lawmakers, joined by industry groups like the state Chamber of Commerce and the California Restaurant Association, refer to the bill as a “job killer.” They counter that a wage increase of this magnitude will deal a heavy blow to employers who will be forced to automate many low-skilled positions and ultimately drive more workers out of the market, thus killing thousands of jobs.

“Given the economics in our industry, where restaurants operate at very thin profit margins, a 25 percent increase in labor costs will result in fewer job opportunities for Californians looking to get back on their feet,” California Restaurant Association CEO Jot Condie told the San Jose Mercury News.

Although the federal minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour, most employers in California are subject to state and municipal minimum-wage laws, and are required to follow the standard that offers the highest pay. San Francisco and San Jose (as of November) are among only a handful of cities in the country that have set their own minimum wage platforms, at $10.55 and $10.00 respectively.

It turns out a lot of the workers who make Happy Meals aren’t actually all that happy about it.

It was a sentiment made abundantly clear in late August during a wave of one-day walkouts, in which thousands of fast-food workers around the country took to the streets to demand higher wages and the opportunity to join a union. Spurred by protests in New York that began last November, and supported by the Service Employees International Union, the demonstrations took place in front of about 1,000 restaurants — from McDonald’s and Burger King to Kentucky Fried Chicken and Subway — in 60 cities throughout the country.

In 2012, the median hourly wage for a fast-food worker was a little under $9, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But among the millions of fast-food workers in America, many earn at or near the federal minimum wage; just $7.25 an hour. Assuming a 40-hour week, that translates to about $15,000 a year, far below the cost of living pretty much anywhere in the United States, and well under half the median salary of all U.S. workers. Add to that the cost of health care and other benefits that most fast-food workers don’t receive or have to pay mostly pay out of pocket, and you’re looking at a pretty financially strapped work force.

The federal minimum wage, last raised in 2009, hasn’t kept pace with the rate of inflation. It’s a disparity that’s prompted the Obama administration to push for an increase to $9 an hour, a proposal opposed by most conservatives in Congress and unlikely to be approved in the near future. (In a handful of states the minimum wage is slightly higher, including California where it’s $8 an hour. Washington State has the highest minimum wage in the country, at $9.19 an hour.)

“People can’t survive on the minimum wage,” Taco Bell employee Roberto Tejada told the New York Times. At the Los Angeles Taco Bell where he works, Tejada makes $8 an hour “Nobody who works full time should live in poverty,” he said.

Following a recent trend in which more employees in blue- and white-collar jobs are demanding better working conditions, the fast-food protests are unique in that they are targeting the entire industry rather than individual companies.

But many fast-food restaurant executives and franchise owners argue that the business model they operate under doesn’t allow for them to significantly raise wages without passing the costs directly onto American consumers and their insatiable demand for cheap food.

Because of how inexpensive most fast food is, the industry operates under very low profit margins. It means that companies might make a profit of mere pennies from each burger or bucket of chicken sold, and must therefore produce and sell in huge volumes at the lowest possible cost — including the cost of labor — in order to generate large cumulative profits.

Essentially, what it comes down to is that higher wages for workers would mean either the fast-food companies or the consumers would have to foot the bill, a notion that neither seems seems particularly willing to do.

“There’s no room in the fast-food business model for substantially higher pay levels without raising the prices for food,” Richard Adams, who runs a fast-food consulting firm, told the Associated Press.

The industry also commonly notes that it provides millions of jobs — albeit low-paid ones — to unskilled workers who might otherwise be unemployed.

Traditionally, the fast-food industry employed a mostly young work force, including a large number of teenagers working part time while in school. Today, however, a growing number of workers in the industry are significantly older, and many depend on wages to feed their families. According to an analysis by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal think-tank that created a profile of the nation’s fast-food workforce based on recent census data, almost 40 percent of fast-food workers are 25 or older; more than 30 percent have at least some college experience; and more than a quarter have children.

As a result a growing percentage of fast-food workers rely on food stamps and other forms of public assistance to get by.

The infographic below, produced by Lisa Mahapatra of the International Business Times illustrates the data presented in the CEPR study.

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2013/09/09/just-scraping-by-fast-food-workers-fight-for-a-living-wage/feed/4The American Fast Food WorkerHow Much Does it Really Cost to Live in California?http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2013/07/23/calculating-the-real-cost-of-living-in-calfornia/
http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2013/07/23/calculating-the-real-cost-of-living-in-calfornia/#commentsTue, 23 Jul 2013 12:20:59 +0000http://blogs.kqed.org/lowdown/?p=8545Continue reading How Much Does it Really Cost to Live in California?→]]>In order to pay for basic living expenses, a single California resident with no children would need to make, on average, roughly $11.20/hour.

That’s according to the Living Wage Calculator created by Amy K. Glasmeier, a professor of urban planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Below are estimates of how much each adult in various-sized households needs to make in order to pay for basic monthly living expenses. Keep in mind that these figures are estimated statewide averages. The actual cost of things in California, of course, varies significantly, by region. Whereas rent in Stockton may be lower than what’s shown here, San Francisco’s average rent is, well, fuggedaboutit!

All estimates below are based on Glasmeier’s calculator, which uses government data to estimate average living wage expenses for every state and county in the country.

As Glasmeier notes, consider results a minimum cost threshold, and likely an underestimate for metropolitan areas and other higher cost areas. Additionally, you many notice that households with two adults and children are listed as having lower costs than households with one adult and children. The discrepancy is due to child care costs: two adult households — with one sole earner — assume one adult stays home with the children.

(Additional methodology explained below charts)

Methodology (as explained by MIT’s Glasmeier):

The calculator lists typical expenses, the living wage and typical wages for the selected location … The tool is designed to provide a minimum estimate of the cost of living for low wage families. The estimates do not reflect a middle class standard of living. The realism of the estimates depend on the type of community under study. Metropolitan counties are typically locations of high cost. In such cases, the calculator is likely to underestimate costs such as housing and child care. Consider the results a minimum cost threshold that serves as a benchmark, but only that. Users can substitute local data when available to generate more nuanced estimates. Adjustments to account for local conditions will provide greater realism and potentially increase the accuracy of the tool. As developed, the tool is meant to provide one perspective on the cost of living in America.

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2013/07/23/calculating-the-real-cost-of-living-in-calfornia/feed/41Is It Time To Raise The Federal Minimum Wage?http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2013/02/17/should-the-u-s-raise-its-minimum-wage/
http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2013/02/17/should-the-u-s-raise-its-minimum-wage/#commentsSun, 17 Feb 2013 21:58:04 +0000http://blogs.kqed.org/lowdown/?p=6081Continue reading Is It Time To Raise The Federal Minimum Wage?→]]>Source: NPR

Much of President Obama’s State of the Union address last Tuesday centered on the theme of boosting America’s dwindling middle class.

Among the more tangible policies mentioned that evening to further that objective, the president proposed raising the federal minimum wage – from $7.25 per hour to $9 by the end of 2015 – and provide for annual cost of living adjustments. (This would apply to most hourly jobs, with some exceptions, including some tip-based work.)

“Let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on earth, no one who works full time should have to live in poverty,” he said. “Working folks shouldn’t have to wait year after year for the minimum wage to go up, while CEO pay has never been higher. So here’s an idea that Gov. Romney and I actually agreed on last year: Let’s tie the minimum wage to the cost of living, so that it finally becomes a wage you can live on.”

How much does a minimum wage worker actually make?

Source: Center for American Progress

A full-time worker making the federal minimum wage (at $7.25/hour) earns about $14,500 a year, which is slightly above the federal poverty line ($11,490) for a person living alone. But for a single parent with one child, that same wage would be below the poverty line (which is $15,510 for a two-person household). In 2011, roughly 4 million Americans were making at or below the minimum wage, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Over 60 percent of them were women and roughly half were under 25.

The Obama administration argues that a $1.75 wage increase would affect an estimated 15 million workers (taking into account those now making more than the minimum wage but less than $9).

What are the arguments?

As with most things in politics, it’s one thing to propose something, and quite another to actually make it so. Raising the minimum wage is no exception. Since the U.S.established it’s first minimum wage in 1938 (at 25 cents and hour), increasing it has never come without a long hard fight. In fact, when Obama first prepared to take office in 2008, his transition plan included a promise to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2011. And that was the last we heard about that … up until now.

Raising the wage is strongly opposed by most conservatives who view it as a job killer and a prime example of government overreach into the free market economy.

Pro

– Sylvia Allegretto, Labor Economist, UC Berkeley

Every full-time worker deserves to earn a living wage and be able to afford basic necessities like food, gas, and health care.

In a time of record corporate profits and widening economic inequality, an increase would help distribute more of the pie to employees.

It would boost economic activity by lifting more people out of poverty, increasing their purchasing power, and reducing dependence on social services.

Fears that anincrease would negatively impact job growth are unfounded.

Minimum wage workers have some of the most difficult, but important jobs in our economy and should be fairly compensated for their hard work.

Con

“it’s a classic example of the law of unintended consequences: the very individuals that it intends to help are the one’s who are going to be the most hurt.”

– John Kabateck, National Fed. of Ind. Business

Raising the minimum wage would hurt already struggling small businesses by increasing their overall costs.

Many businesses would likely respond to a higher minimum wage by cutting workers’ hours and reducing the number of employees.

It would encourage more American businesses to outsource jobs to countries where labor is significantly cheaper.

The American economy functions best as a free market system, and undue government interference stifles growth and job creation.

It would further increase the unemployment rate among younger workers, which rose significantly after the last increase five years ago.

When was the minimum wage first established, and how often does it go up?

It’s been raised multiple times – and somewhat erratically – since Congress first passed the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 as part of New Deal legislation. Referred to by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as “the most far-reaching, farsighted program for the benefit of workers every adopted in this or any other country,” the law hinged on the federal government’s authority to regulate interstate commerce. It established a 25-cent minimum wage (about $4 today) and marked the first time employers were legally required to pay workers overtime for certain hourly jobs). The minimum wage last went up in 2007 – from $5.15 to $7.25 – the first increase in a decade.

The chart at left, by CNN Money, nicely illustrates the history of the minimum wage in actual dollars (nominal value) vs. today’s inflation-adjusted dollars (real value). In 1948, the minimum wage reached its lowest buying power – worth about $3.80 in today’s dollars. From there, though, it rose significantly, and by 1968 had reached it’s highest buying power, at more than $10.50 in today’s dollars. (In other words, the $1.60 rate that minimum wage workers received in 1968 was worth a lot more than the $7.25 they earn now).

Today the minimum wage is about midday between those two extremes, and raising it to $9 would put it back to what itvwas worth in the early 1980s.

How do minimum wage laws differ from state to state?

While $7.25 is the national baseline, individual states can set higher rates. Currently 18 states have minimum wages above $7.25, including California (at $8), where efforts are underway to increase it. At $9.19 an hour, the State of Washington has the nation’s highest rate. Four states actually have minimum wages below the national rate, but those rates are essentially defunct since employers must still defer to the higher rate. Click on the map at right to search through a Department of Labor interactive map of individual state rates.

How does our minimum wage compare to rates in other wealthy nations (and what does it tell us about relative income inequality)?

The U.S. trails a number of the world’s other wealthy nations, with Australia leading the charge at more than $15 (a number of industrialized countries like Germany don’t have a minimum wage). The following map is based on figure from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (for countries where this data is available). Click on each shaded country to see its minimum wage (in U.S. dollars) as well as that wage as it compares to the median full-time wage of that nation’s workforce. The latter figure is one indicator of the gap between a nation’s lowest earners and those who earn roughly at the midpoint of the spectrum. Using that measure, the U.S. minimum wage is less than 40 percent of its median full-time wage, showing a significant degree of economic inequality. In other words – the gap between the lowest earners and the middle earners is substantial.

Audio and Video Clips

ABC News explores the issue and its opposing sides

KQED Forum 30 minute segment on the the politics and economics of the proposed minimum wage increases, and the impacts on workers and businesses: